Daily Yoga and Kitty Paws

I have been an enthusiastic, though not always disciplined, student of Yoga for years and years. It sprung from dance - the stretching and the posture were something I wanted to continue even after my studio days were over and at that point there were no pilates classes readily available (another class I love taking. I always feel 3 inches taller...) So I have a subscription to Yoga Journal, which I love. This month has a cover article about Yoga in the morning to wake up. Anyone who's spent any time with me in the mornings knows that I need a solid 45 minutes to form complete sentences. I'm hoping this handy article will help that.

The other handy bits in the magazine are the pictoral spreads that are meant to be cut out and used as part of your home practice. I have mine on the door to my office and have completed every pose but the headstand. Quite frankly, since the brain-swell I'm a little freaked out to be upside down. I've even cut my Downward Dog time in half.


It's actually quite motivating. And I wrote at the bottom of the Sun Salutations (at the top of the image, under the girl in Downward Dog) that is a common belief among Yogis that daily sun salutations can effectively help mental illness. I'm thinking they're probably leaning towards things like depression, which is a result of off-balanced seratonin and endorphins.

I found Yoga Today, a site which offers up daily hour-long yoga sessions for free. Different every day and you can choose from a selection of back-stocked videos. The instructors are very knowledgable and give rather precise instructions that tell you where every muscle, joint, and limb should be in the midst of any given pose. At least for the beginner classes, they do. I did the Power Of Intention a few days ago and it kicked my ass. In the best possible workouty way. It's fab.

Anyway, that's my pimp for today. On to funnier topics.

Rubber tips for kitty claws, from Softpaws. These are great. They allow the cat to keep its claws, which is the equivalent of allowing you to keep the part of your fingers where your nail is located. Think of how often you use this part of your finger. Not a total loss if it's gone, but it would certainly require some adjustment, particularly if you've gone your entire life having said extremity and then wake up one morning to find it missing. I can't bring myself to do that to my cats. We're not as diligent about capping their claws as we should be, of course, but we make an effort and the cats don't mind. Usually we get pink for Polly and black for Kipper but this last go around it was purple for Polly and Grey for Kipper. I'd post pictures, but I haven't applied them yet and they're usually unhappy enough afterwards that they hide under the bed. Plus the hate the camera. So I scanned in the how-to card that came in the package. Note the expression of pure kitty hate on their model:


and now I'm going to leave you to go watch Josh Lyman, who is certainly on my list....a topic which deserves a blog entirely devoted to it. :-)